Meadows and pasture

There can be few things more quintessentially Swedish than the traditional Swedish farming areas. The sun-bathed hay meadows and the stony enclosures with grazing sheep, horses and cattle are still a symbol of Swedish summer. The old Swedish farming landscape is a joy to see, hear and smell.

Swedish hearts cherish the wonderful smell and the glorious colours of a summer meadow, with brimstone and small tortoise shell butterflies fluttering among the ox-eye daisies, the harebells, the wild chervil, the crane's bill and the lady's bedstraw, and innumerable songbirds singing in the trees.

But in recent decades this old, richly variegated farming scene, with its glorious biodiversity, has been pushed aside by demands for increased profitability and large-scale agricultural methods. The proportion of meadows and enclosed pasture-land has been halved since the second world war. Environmental protection forces are working intensively to preserve what is still left. With the aid of public funding, farmers are being encouraged to reduce their use of pesticides and revive traditional methods of cultivation, such as mowing the meadows for hay and grazing enclosed pasture-lands.